HERMES Radio

HERMES Radio: Energy and Spectral Efficient Transmitter architectures for small satellites

Karunanithi, Visweswaran (TU Delft Electronics; Innovative Solutions in Space)
Verhoeven, C.J.M. (TU Delft Electronics)
Silveira Vaucher, C. (TU Delft Electronics; NXP Semiconductors)

2022

As the complexity of nanosatellite missions have increased over time, the data generated on-board nanosatellites have increased multiple folds. As a result, there is a need to downlink large amounts of data. Multiple nanosatellite missions have started using spectral efficient modulation schemes recommended in DVB.S2 and DVB.S2X to make the best use of the available spectrum. One of the main challenges in adopting higher order modulation schemes is to power-efficiently upconvert and amplify the baseband signals. All the lost efficiency in converting the DC power to the RF output is dissipated as heat and the relatively small thermal mass of nanosatellites poses thermal management challenges. As a first step to addressing the challenge of improving the power efficiency of the communication module, optimization techniques to improve the Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) of the modulation schemes (16/32-APSK) are discussed in this paper. The PAPR of 16-APSK reduces by ~2 dB by incorporating filtering techniques discussed in this paper. Further, a well-known efficiency and linearity enhancement technique; Out-phasing/LINC (Linear Amplification using Non-linear Components) is discussed. As a variant of the out-phasing architecture, a novel approach is proposed using two circularly polarized antenna to transmit the constant envelope signals in opposite polarizations and signal combining is performed at the receiver. Simulations results are used to demonstrate how higher efficiencies can be achieved using the proposed architecture.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6593d6ca-f194-4a29-86f0-a60a26b9b86a

https://doi.org/10.1109/AERO53065.2022.9843200

IEEE

2023-07-01

978-1-6654-3761-5

Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE Aerospace Conference (AERO)

2022 IEEE Aerospace Conference (AERO), 2022-03-05 → 2022-03-12, Big Sky, United States

IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings, 1095-323X, 2022-March

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2022 Visweswaran Karunanithi, C.J.M. Verhoeven, C. Silveira Vaucher